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The first steps of my home brewing experiment

After declaring that my New Year’s resolution would be to try more new things, one of my friends suggested that I try brewing my own beer at home. I thought that this would be the ideal resolution, since it’s always nice to take on a fun task rather than disappointing myself by not following through with something that I don’t like.

When I returned home after work last Friday, I was so excited to see that my Mr. Beer brewing kit had arrived during the day. I eagerly brought the package inside, opened it and then took a gander at the instructions. Since beer brewing is a fairly intricate taskthere are a lot of steps involved with the process. Rather than overwhelm myself, I thought I would tackle the first two steps, and worry about completing the brewing at another time.

The first partof the process is spigot assembly, which was fairly easy. It was a matter of finding the right spot on the keg and then inserting the spigot, then tightening it. I didn’t have any trouble with this, and was happy that the sealwas leak-free when I tested it out by filling it with water.

The next part of making beer feels a little more like doing chores than making beer, but sanitizing the container is important, since the beer will be brewing for a while, and you don’t want bacteria to grow within the container. Luckily, my brewing kit came with a no-rinse cleanser that made sanitization a snap. After following the directions and doing the keg, I placed all of my other materials into the cleaning solution inside the keg so that they would be clean as well.

It seemed simple enough, but that was it! I can’t wait to start the brewing step tomorrow.